II

Chapter Fifty-One

II

Present day

II

Belle hums softly on a song as she walks down the street, Rumpelstiltskin's hand holding hers is such a gentle touch she can barely feel it. But it is a touch and he hasn't let go.

She feels almost happy, she realizes. The heart that she has claimed as hers is beating soundly in her chest and the music they've danced to seems to still reverberate in her skin. Snow, Charming and their daughter are back home and she doesn't have to feel guilty about getting them to save Killian anymore.

She could be happy, she thinks. She really could. She believes it.

"Belle," Rumpel says softly, halting their walk and taking both her hands in his. "I am going to be busy for a little while."

"With what?" she asks. He is up to something, she can tell it from the look in his eyes. But there is no anger there so she relaxes slightly. Perhaps it isn't going after Killian again or causing grief some other way.

"Finding my son," he breathes. "I have to find my son."

She nods. For the son. Even her heart was lost in the name of the son. She hasn't quite forgiven, but she does understand loving someone enough to desperately search for them. "I hope you find him."

"I will," he promises. He lifts her hands and kisses them reverently. "I have a way."

"After you have found him, what then?" she asks.

For a moment, he looks so lost it almost staggers her. Him, the Dark One, looks utterly lost and even terrified. Just for a moment, but it's a moment too long.

"I don't know," he simply says.

II

Neal wakes from his dream abruptly, panting. It is the same one as always, the one where his father lets go. Only it isn't a nightmare. It's a memory turned into a recurring dream that seems to never quite let go. Even now, so long after, it still hits him now and then.

It hit him enough to let Emma go. Fear of his father as well as all the things August told him about her destiny. He hopes she is happy now, wherever she is. Happy and reunited with her parents.

Her parents loved her enough to give up everything for her. His didn't. His mother left. His father chose power over him.

That is a sort of waking nightmare to be living in, Neal figures and gives up on sleep.

II

Regina stands in her bedroom and feels lost.

Tomorrow, it will be official. The news will be out that Henry Mills has passed away and people will offer condolences with varying degrees of sincerity. He was an old man, many will think. His time had come.

But it hadn't. It wasn't his time. She had done all she could to prolong his time, to keep him with her. Her father. He was all she had, truly had, and now he is gone. Lost to her.

Now she feels lonely. She misses Henry, young Henry Nolan, fiercely, she finds. It's like an ache in her heart,a physical pain on top of the grief. He was only with her a few days but it still filled her life with something she didn't even know she wanted.

A family. Now it is just her and that won't make a family. That just makes her lonely. Regina Mills, all alone.

No. No, she won't let that stand. No.

II

Snow leads her husband by the hand through the dark to their bed. He looks a little lost – lost to memories and old griefs become new – and her heart hurts for him. She may have lost much in her life but he has as well. His father, his mother, a brother he never know. His daughter was lost to him for 28 years too.

"Charming," she says lovingly as he sits down on the bed. He looks up at her, his eyes a dimmed blue without any light to catch them. Gently, she places herself in his lap and brushes her lips against his.

He makes a noise that sounds like a choked sob that tears into her heart. She keeps her lips pressed softly against his while brushing her thumb across his cheekbone; offering what comfort in touches she can.

What Ruth did for him, he would do for Emma, she knows. That doesn't ease the grief, it merely adds another aspect to it.

He makes another choked noise into the kiss, then he kisses her back with fervor. His mouth covers hers and his lips tugs insistently on hers. She is gentle in return, with light caresses on his skin as he lowers them both on the bed.

As she shifts a little underneath him, he pulls back to look at her. His gaze is tender, but she can see the need behind it too. Tonight, he needs her, needs the comfort she can offer.

"Snow," he whispers lovingly.

"I'm right here," she whispers back and reaches up to kiss him.

II

"Emma," Henry whispers and Emma wakes abruptly, blinking up at him. He puts dad's candle on the night-table next to her, careful not to put it up. It captures the nightmares, after all. Dad told him that.

"Henry," she murmurs, her voice thick with sleep. She still smiles at him. "What's wrong?"

"Just a bad dream," he says. That is the truth, after all. Bad dreams fade. He just has to be brave until they do.

"Nightmares, huh?" Emma says, shifting further into the bed so Henry can lay down next to her. "Mary Margaret told me about them."

"Oh." He considers that, wondering if Emma still thinks he's brave even if the nightmares scare him. "Do you ever have bad dreams?"

"Yeah, kid," she says.

That makes him feel a bit better. So does her arm slipping around him. He feels safe, like he would in mom and dad's bed. Now he has another bed to go to as well.

"Do you want me to get David and Mary Margaret?" she asks after a while. He thinks of mom and dad probably resting and how worried they would be if he told them about the nightmare. He watches Emma's smile as she looks at him too.

"No," he says. "Not if I can stay here tonight."

"Of course," she says and her smile stays. "It'll be our secret. Henry and Emma's secret sleep-over."

"Operation Koala," he suggests and she gives him a look. "Koalas sleep a lot."

"Operation Koala then," she agrees and she closes her eyes again. He waits until her breath steadies and she is sleeping again as he's not sure she's ready to hear this yet.

"Love you, mom," he whispers. "Mom Emma."

He gives the candle one last look to check that it is still burning and then he closes his eyes to sleep too.

He doesn't dream again that night.

II

When she had nightmares after the sleeping curse, Charming would ease her back to sleep with soft words and gentle touches, or keep her awake with demanding kisses and possessive hands across her body when she didn't wish to sleep again.

What she needed, he would give.

Now he needs and she gives; kissing him while her hands caress every inch of his skin, loving him with her body just as readily as she does with her heart.

"I love you," she whispers and then kisses it into his skin.

II

FTL, the past

II

David is crying again. Carefully, Ruth eases out of bed without waking her husband and walks over to the crib. She is already singing softly as she lifts David up. It's a lullaby her mother taught her and David quiets as she keeps singing.

He is a wonderful child, she has already decided. Wonderful for simply being her son. She is going to raise him with love enough for two.

Of course, it should have been two. Perhaps that is why David is crying. Perhaps he misses the brother he was born with, the brother no longer sharing the crib. The child they gave away. James.

At the thought of that, the guilt chokes her and the lullaby dies away. David blinks at her as if disappointed. She presses a kiss to his forehead, hoping he'll never have to face such a choice. To give a child up for its own good or not – that is a terrible choice no parent should ever have to face. Yet she has and she would do it again.

For the good of both David and James, she gave up James. Now all she can do is make David's life the best it can be.

"I love you, my son," she whispers and David falls back asleep at that.

II

Present day

II

Emma walks into the sheriff station that morning with what she knows is a spring in her step and she can't even be bothered disguising it. Graham smiles up at her and offers her a good morning. It makes her happy and give serious consideration to inviting him somewhere for breakfast and then devouring him rather than food. Somewhere David wouldn't find them, of course. She wouldn't want Graham to get beheaded, after all.

The phone rings. She picks it up, seeing from the contact picture that it is David. Oh. The toaster buying adventure they have planned today. She had almost forgotten. "Hey David."

"Emma," Davis says. She can tell something is wrong instantly from the tone in his voice. "Did you walk Henry to the school bus today?"

"Yeah. Mary Margaret suggested it, I wasn't..."

"I know. I remember," he cuts in and she can hear a touch of desperation in his voice now, as if he can't suppress it any longer. Something is very wrong. "But Emma, Henry isn't at school and no one has seen him all morning. We don't know where he is."

She should have known, she thinks distantly. She was feeling good, she was feeling happy. She should have known.

It never lasts.